Off-frequency listening and auditory-filter asymmetry

Abstract

The phenomenon of off‐frequency listening, and the asymmetry of the auditory filter, were investigated by performing a masking experiment in which a 2.0‐kHz tonal signal (0.4 sec in duration) was masked by a pair of noise bands, one below and the other above the tone. The noise bands were 0.8‐kHz wide. The edges of the bands were very sharp, the spectrum level in the band was 40 dB SPL, and the masker was on continuously throughout the experiment. Tone threshold was measured as a function of the distances from the tone to the nearer edge of each noise band. It was assumed that conditions in which one noise band was near the tone and the other remote from the tone would encourage the observer to listen off frequency, that is, to center his auditory filter, not at the tone frequency, but at the frequency that optimizes the signal‐to‐noise ratio at the output of the filter. The threshold data were analysed with a power spectrum model of masking in which it was assumed that the general form of the filter shape was a rounded exponential (a pair of back‐to‐back, negative exponentials with the peak smoothed and the tails raised). The specific filter shape obtained by applying this model to the threshold data has a broad passband (a 220‐Hz, 3‐dB bandwidth), steep skirts (slopes of 100 dB/octave) and shallower tails (slopes of 30–50 dB/octave) that take over 30–35 dB down from the peak of sensitivity. The filter is asymmetric, with the lower branch slightly broader than the upper. The filter is shifted off frequency by more than half its bandwidth in some cases, and the shift can improve the signal‐to‐noise ratio by up to 5.0 dB.